Help me improve my list of modern elite political journalism's most self-defeating conventions. Reply here or by email: By and large:
1.Letting politicians say things you know aren't true is part of the job
2.Rebutting untrue statements can be important, but is secondary to reporting them
3.Rebutting untrue statements is really someone else's job
4.Saying that someone is lying requires absolute knowledge of their intent
5.Circumstantial evidence is not enough to call something a lie
6.Report what people said; it's up to the readers to decide what it means
7.When sources avoid or duck questions, quote their responses anyway
8.On a day-to-day basis, access is a top priority and losing it is the greatest career risk
9.If you want to influence things, you need to be read by the influentials
10.Don't get frozen out of the D.C. cocktail-party circuit
11.Sound bytes are efficient and effective
12.The realities of the news business require the chasing of shiny pennies
13.Something new is way more worth writing about than something old
14.Long articles about policy are boring
15.One quote from each side is often analyis enough
16.Both sides have equal merit
17.Every argument has only two sides
18. Avoid the perception of taking a side
19. When in doubt, split the difference
20. Politics is a game, political journalism is about calling the winners and losers
21. Reporters' personal viewpoints on political issues, if they have any, are inconsequential
22. Historical perspective is generally of little interest to readers
23.Reporters can't encyclopedically remember everything and don't have room to do so anyway
24.The story speaks for itself
25. Explaining things too much drives away the people who most need to read the news
26.And, the newest one: Our work deserves more eyeballs -- and clickbait gets eyeballs
